In the display of model railroad trains, it has been common practice to use an endless pattern of track. This is true not only in the case of the model railroad hobbyist, but also the retail sales outlet. The display and sale of such equipment usually takes place in a "hobby shop" and is sold along with many other items; therefore, space is at a premium and it is difficult to justify one large area of the store for the installation of a conventional endless track layout for demonstrating the operation of the model railroad equipment. In some cases, the hobbyist himself moves to an apartment and has no room to install a large conventional layout. Furthermore, even if he has a large layout in his cellar, he may wish to display certain important, unusual or expensive portions of his equipment in his den or even in his office. When used in this way, as a "conversation piece ", it would be desirable to show the equipment in operation, but the usual endless track layout is too large for such purposes. These and other difficulties experienced with the prior art devices have been obviated in a novel manner by the present invention.
It is, therefore, an outstanding object of the invention to provide model railroad layout which occupies very little space.
Another object of this invention is the provision of model railroad layout for displaying equipment in a retail sales store.
A further object of the present invention is the provision of model railroad layout for operating equipment as a display unit in a home or office.
It is another object of the instant invention to provide model railroad layout for continuous back-and-forth operation of equipment in an automatic manner.
A still further object of the invention is the provision of model railroad layout that is simple in nature, that is inexpensive to manufacture, and that is capable of a long life of useful service with a minimum of maintenance.
It is a further object of the invention to provide model railroad layout including a simple and rugged control means for reversing electrical polarity on the track to cause to-and-fro movement of an engine.
With these and other objects in view, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the invention resides in the combination of parts set forth in the specification and covered by the claims appended hereto.